


absence

by celosiaa



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Martin has Tourette's, Recovery, Sick Character, Sickfic, Whump, pre relationship jonmartin, soft caretaking we love to see it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27055591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celosiaa/pseuds/celosiaa
Summary: What if Jon wasn't perfectly fine after waking up from his coma?What if Martin was not yet completely lost to the Lonely?
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 30
Kudos: 159





	absence

**Author's Note:**

> hey hey everybody guess who is back from the dead!
> 
> I have been v sick but this is the most coherent I have felt in almost ten days now so obviously I used the energy to write this fic! There will be a second chapter!
> 
> Setting: right after the episode where Jon wakes up from his coma, Georgie leaves, and Basira is soon to follow.
> 
> Also Martin has Tourette's in this fic!!

Soon after Basira returns with the water, it all falls apart.

“What did you mean, you ‘feel more real?’ What does that mean, Jon?” she demands, slamming the plastic cup of water on the tray hard enough for it so slosh over the edge. “What did you do?”

Perhaps it’s the post-statement, post-coma bit of euphoria; perhaps it’s the overwhelming hurt of hearing Georgie wish him dead—but Jon cannot quite stifle the laugh that bubbles up in his chest. Cannot quite swallow what he’s sure would be damp filling up the corners of his eyes, were he not still so dehydrated that he has nothing left to spare.

He has little left to spare of anything, it seems, after he spares a glance down his emaciated form.

“I d-don’t—I didn’t do _anything_ , Basira. I wouldn’t—wouldn’t lie to you.”

“Bullshit,” she barks, crossing her arms and leering over him—reminding him so much of Daisy, it sends a familiar chill up his spine. “What. Did. You. Do.”

“I—please, Basira. Trust me.”

“ _Ha_.”

“I-I didn’t. Didn’t do anything, I swear. If I did, I don’t—don’t remember.”

It’s the truth, it’s god’s honest truth, but it’s not enough. Of course it wouldn’t be—it’s _Jon_ , after all. Jon’s word had never been enough for her.

“You know what?” she spits, sharp eyes meeting his after a few small moments away. “Georgie was right. This _isn’t_ how it’s supposed to go. _You_ shouldn’t be here.”

_Shouldn’t be here shouldn’t be here_

Old, terrible wounds he had hoped were long dead begin to fester once again in his mind. He had always considered Basira a friend, but now…now perhaps, it would hurt even worse if she were.

A slamming door, and he’s back in the present. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, he Knows Basira will not be returning—and is not going to get a nurse, either. No, Basira…Basira will no longer be part of this. Will no longer be part of _him_ , as all of Jon’s friends come to be, eventually.

_Friend._

_She was my friend._

What else is there to do but sit, quiet and still, waiting on the world to turn again? Surely it had stopped. There is no window in this place—nothing to tell him the time at all. Perhaps they thought he hadn’t needed it, because he was never going to wake up. No one to disorient if there’s nobody there.

_“No, please—he should—“_

Scratching, a scratching at the back of his mind. A blurry picture, faded and torn, knitting together slowly with stitches formed from static and a searing pain behind his eyes.

_“—he should have a window.”_

Martin. It’s _Martin,_ eyes soft and warm and loving and…despairing. The picture grows and grows and grows until—

_“No, please,” Martin begs as he enters the new room they’ve just wheeled Jon’s body into, glancing around with distress, left hand banging rhythmically against his thigh. “He should—he should have a window, in case he wakes up—he’ll be disorientated, please.”_

_“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave, if—"_

_“No! I’ll not—I’ll not sit here, and let this happen—"_

Thrown physically back by the weight of the memory, Jon finds himself lying back dizzily against his pillows, head pounding, heart pounding even louder with the knowledge that _Martin was here, he cared, he was here he was here—_

And then he looks to the left, and finds a copy of The Lord of the Rings. His copy, to be exact—it must have been taken from his flat, it’s so worn and loved and read and reread and reread. Reaching out to touch it with a shaking, far-too-thin hand, he presses his fingertips against the cracked spine and Sees—

Martin, reading it to him.

_“_ _‘I wonder,” said Frodo, “But I don’t know. And that’s the way of a real tale. Take any one that you’re fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of a tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don’t know. And you don’t want them to.’”_

_Taking a pause from the passage, Martin quirks up a little half smile, a sad whisper of a thing, before taking Jon’s hand in one of his own—using the other to remove his glasses, as he begins to weep in silence._

Aching, aching, aching is Jon’s chest—down through the depths of his soul, if indeed, he could still be said to have one. It is no longer a decision—he _must_ phone Martin. If enough of him is still there to be phoned.

He hits the call button on his bedside remote and waits.

—

“Mr. Sims?” calls a nurse tentatively from the door, face still ashen from the shock of seeing him awake, and half-sitting back against his pillows. “I’ve got a phone for you.”

“Ah, thank you,” Jon breathes at once, reaching out a still-shaking arm to take it from her before she turns to hang another bag of saline on the pole to his right, hooking it up carefully to his line as she continues to speak.

“We—erm, just so you don’t waste your time, we tried your emergency contact many times with no response. A…Stoker, I believe is their last name?”

Any wind he had managed to pick back up in his sails is pushed right out of his chest with the devastation of these words.

_Tim._

_God, Tim._

“Mr. Sims? You alright?” she asks, looking moments away from poking or prodding him again—something he can’t bear, not with his skin crawling like this.

“F-fine, fine,” he assures, silently begging his hands to stop shaking. “Fine, thank you. For the phone.”

“You’re—you’re welcome. Erm,” she stammers, stumbling over herself in her hurry to back out of the door. “Ring if you need something.”

And then she’s gone, and he’s left alone again.

_Alone alone always alone_

He’s got to keep going; got to tear his mind forcibly away from his private anguish—and turns to what he desperately hopes will not become a new, unbearable grief. Punching in a number he feels he has no right to Know, he presses the phone against his ear and rings Martin.

It rings.

And rings.

And rings.

Until he gets a notice that the voicemail box is full.

Stomach jolting, he realizes that Basira could have been wrong, that he could be in trouble, that he could be—

_No no no_

He rings again, waiting with bated breath, utterly motionless.

No answer.

He wants to tear it all down, to burn through every wall that separates him from Seeing him—

He rings one more time.

**“Look, you’ve got the wrong number,”** comes the irritated voice on the other end of the line after the third ring—and Jon will never be sure that it’s not the most beautiful sound he has ever heard.

“… _Martin_ ,” is all he can say, all he can feel as he collapses back onto his pillows, lips upturning in a smile he never thought would grace his expression again.

A pause, long and frozen, like an inhaled breath that refuses to be let out.

**“ _Jon_?”**

The disbelief, the shuddering hope is so clear in his tone that Jon at last feels his eyes pooling with the tears that had so often refused to come.

“It’s me,” he whispers, like a prayer—begging to be believed.

**“F—oh, _fuck_ —“**

Loud clattering resonates from the other end of the line as the phone is dropped—or perhaps thrown. A more common tic for Martin when he feels something very strongly.

Whatever feeling it may have been that brought it on, Jon is grateful to observe the humanity of it—tears slipping down his face at last as he sees Martin in his mind’s eye, collecting his phone with the massively thick case around it, checking it for cracks as he does every time, though the screen protector has never once been without cracks—

Jon finds himself weeping, laughing, gasping—so very fond.

_I missed you I missed you_

_I miss you_

**“Hello? You still there?”** Martin gasps, voice a bit wild, a bit desperate.

“Still here,” he assures, wiping his face with a heavy sniff.

**“Listen, this—"** he begins, voice forcibly hardened, though Jon can hear the shakiness beneath. **“This better not be a—a fucking _prank_ , or—"**

“I-It’s not. Martin, it’s not. I promise.”

_I’m still here._

**“…how?”** he asks, voice still sharp, and Jon hardly supposes he can blame him.

“I don’t—"

_It’s a lie, you do know, you’re lying you’re lying_

“—I don’t know. Something…something brought me back,” he stammers, tongue tripping over the acridity of the untruth in his mouth.

_It’s a lie and you know it._

**“And you’re alright?”** comes Martin’s trusting voice from the shoddy speaker.

Of course, running fingers through his hair that had grown so long, so wild, he braces himself for another half-truth.

“Relatively—relatively speaking,” he sighs.

**“What does that mean?”**

Too weak—he finds himself too weak to answer, cannot bear to say the words that will let him ask for help. Never could manage it, really.

**“Do you want me to come get you?”** Martin asks, because of course Martin knows him, knows the way Jon’s mind works, however maladapted it may be.

“Yes,” he murmurs in response, tears beginning to run again at the prospect of seeing Martin, his Martin, here in this lightless room that reminds him so terribly much of the Archives.

“ _Please_.”

**“Be there soon.”**

With a click, the warmth of his voice is gone—but well-replaced by the promise of his presence.

Martin never breaks a promise.

Jon allows the security of it to set him adrift on the tides of sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on tumblr @celosiaa if you want!! it's v chill there I'd love to have you!
> 
> stay safe and warm and healthy!  
> -love, connor


End file.
